Why is mean funny?

In a deliciously nasty opinion column on AdAge, Richard Rapaport skewers the recent tendency for advertising to be… well, nasty. Using several examples of ads that use sophomoric witticisms or put-downs in an attempt to make their product seem cool, he postulates that this cutting humor is either a reflection of the downturn of the economy and dissatisfaction with American politics or somehow causing a domino effect of the snotty, ambivalent attitude typically associated with sixteen-year-olds (which, oddly, he compares with Ty Pennington, who seems to be one of the most passionately involved TV personalities, throwing his slightly manic ADHD-type self into every family-saving, tear-jerking project with the kind of zeal typically expected from a rabid badger, and ending each episode with a heart-rending interview in which he can usually be expected to tear or choke up at least once – somehow, despite his freshman-in-college-just-rolled-out-of-bed appearance, this doesn’t say “ambivalence” to me).

Nevertheless, it does seem to be true that comedy in advertising is more often choosing a sacrificial blunderer in their ads to skewer in the name of marketing. To me, this is not a new thing, but I think the choice of target is changing a bit. It used to be that every ad featuring a family showed either a) Mom unable to complete her womanly duties in the expected briskness due to some kind of faulty product, causing Dad to be grumpy that his collars aren’t clean enough or his dinner isn’t waiting for him when he gets home, and causing kids to whine in righteous indignation at the abuse they are enduring in the name of her store-brand cheapness; or b) Dad as the ultimate bumbling idiot who can’t read a map, tie his shoes or pick out a loaf of bread without constant, aw-you-poor-thing intervention from both mom and kids. Now, however, the sacrificial lamb is often the gray-skinned cube-mole of corporate America, or the clueless neighbor, or the slobbering, panting neanderthal male attempting any stupid stunt to attract the attention of some ridiculously beautiful woman entirely out of his league.

What do people find funny these days? Watch any of the myriad excessively stupid recent comedy movies (Epic Movie, for example, which we TiVo’d just out of curiosity, and quickly deleted less than 5 minutes into the first attempt at watching) and you’ll find gross-out violence, potty humor and excessive stupidity to be the hallmarks of what makes the average watcher chuckle. Family Guy, a TV show that I admit has made me laugh on more than one occasion, relies on the kind of snide, cutting wit that supposedly reflects an increasing dissatisfaction with society at large.

So why would this type of comedy be off-limits to advertisers? The author of the article postulates that the ads often communicate an attitude that the advertisers can’t be bothered to try and sell you anything, an ultra-hip detachment to all things earnest. My response to that – cool sells. It always has. If your target market is a group of people (teens & early twenties) who are living in the culture where the measure of one’s coolness is the only thing that matters, and often caring too much is way uncool, why would any savvy advertiser be bothered to create an earnest, dorky ad to appeal to that target market? Regardless of the product, a spastic, sweating Tony Little in skintight leotard screaming about his latest gizmo for only 12 payments of 29.95 just isn’t going to sell as much as a similar ad that parodies that kind of over-the-top salesmanship, no matter whether the product is a similar gizmo or a stick of gum.

So what is your response? Do you think the article reflects a kind of “turn down that racket” maturity, or do you see sarcastic advertising as a reflection of the snarky, Dubya-era American way?